By

That snake, the knife

In its lyrics tango captures a reddish chronicle about daggers. To settle offenses, to put an end to pending things, to avenge a betrayal or, simply, for boasting being courageous, in fact, the presence of a bladed weapon represents a vast symbol of our culture, and the history of tango faithfully certifies it. Let us revise some texts.

The duel as confirmation of manlinessMario López Osornio in his brainy work Esgrima Criolla points out that a knife in the hands of a man who knows how to handle it gives him courage even though he lacks it, or brings it back from his guts despite he does not want it. Likewise, Borges used to regard the criollo duel not as an incident but as a misfortune, not as a “dispute” but as the mere intention of plainly testing “who is braver”. The poems that belong to his work Para las seis cuerdas (1965) illustrate this proposal.

In this play of testing manliness, the encounter of steel with the body of the opponent meant all. «It goes deep up to your fist; the index finger and the thumb touch his body. This contact which would be enough to forgive somebody indicates that what is consummated has no remedy» says Martínez Estrada in Radiografía de la pampa (1933). However, this kind of duel has not been the one which abounds in police chronicles, especially in the cities. On the contrary, knife battles “with a reason”, have been the most frequent and the ones which have had a wide development in our national literature and, more specifically, in tango lyrics. Even more, knife fights because of women flood tango poetry as you will see later on.

Knife and betrayal in tangoLet us revise some titles in which this knife duel has not been as Borges liked: «with no reason at all» and «only for the sake of it» but its reason was one of the most frequent: an affair of skirts. Julio Navarrine describes in “A la luz del candil”, the unfortunate scene of a treachery that ended up in a double murder and a repentant man who gives himself up to the law authorities and pleads for God’s pardon. The sharp blade has in this piece a role of special importance: it kills and brings forth «the evidence of dishonor» with which the murderer gives himself up.

The thing is that, besides honor, there is place for a more trivial reasoning, a rational speculation that is not at all negligible:

Knife against womanTango was not exempted from this terrible ending. Edmundo Rivero in his milonga “Amablemente”, with lyrics by Iván Diez ,—which so well sounded in that deep, gloomy voice of his— tells us about a quite wicked scenery with an ending in which cruelty and premeditation stand out. As for treachery, Diez poses an ethical scheme: man “is not guilty in these cases” and woman deserves death. After finding his wife in somebody else’s arms he threatens the other guy to leave and asks his wife, naturally, to bring him «some mates», as if nothing had happened. «Talked to her about trivial things…», smoked a cigar…

Knife and suicideThe knife at the service of suicide has not been quite frequent in tango poetry but has not been completely absent. Let us see, for example, the Jacinto Font’s tango “Ofrenda maleva”:

“Te llaman Malevo”, with lyrics by Homero Expósito, places suicide in a genial metaphor which presents us the knife as something almighty, facing time, making it shorter… «plucking the petals of a waiting time».

The knife has been, in sum, a mute character, a magical object in the history of our culture. With a phallic connotation at sight, the knife explores our blood and hides our wish. It has been defense, revenge, pride, courage, but above all it has represented a key and an improbable spell to that mystery that is mentioned in a low voice, respectfully: the knife has been an advance, a lightning, a reddish flash of death which we had better to favor in time than be hurt by carelessness. And tango is, once more, a summary of these stories, a mirror of these wishes, of these fears, so criollo… and so dearly ours.